For the umpteenth time let me state that aging or old age is not an illness. Let me paraphrase that. Old age is not associated with any illness or disease, but individual idiosyncrasies, genes, exposures consumptions and environmental dispositions affect how we age.
There is a video in circulation where 80 to 100 – years – old – men engaged in 100 meters dash. In some climes, 80 to 100 year- olds, are moribund. Why?
Let me make a medical statement of fact, “no two individuals, even if they are twins, age alike.
God has endowed each person with a peculiar aging differences.
In some people, as they age they experience decline in abilities. The decline in efficiency of the body also affects some people’s strength, conscious capabilities, nervous control and mental powers – maximum measures in these, are mostly reached at different ages in some people from 20 to 30 years.
Changes in temperament and behaviour in old people, may be accepted as inevitable. But how far they are really due to neurological and mental deterioration is often hard to judge.
The changes may rather be a psychic reaction to the person’s social, psychological, and physical situation. Old age often brings with it a dramatic change in a person’s experience in life.
Declining physical ability, and efficiency, perhaps involving being looked after by others; the end of working life, and isolation, due to the disappearance of working contacts, family mobility, and death of friends – all these can effect an old person’s self esteem, and lead to depression and melancholia.
Old people find that they have no role to fulfil, and no social label or way of identifying, themselves, other than by the term “old person”. The associated stereotypes of which are not inspiring.
Society’s subtle message can seem the same: “You may be really useful”, and “Though you are enjoying the deserved fruits of your labor, your difficulties and incapabilities are something of a problem for us.
Of course, many old people keep up a wide range of active interest. Like me, after retiring as a Permanent Secretary at age 60 in 2015, I went into part time practice in Gregory University Uturu, took up a course did Masters and now pursuing a PhD, just for the fun, and still actively practicing as a Physician. But for others, it is difficult, due to lack of opportunities, finance, isolation, physical incapacity, and lack of mental stimulation.
The rate of change in modern society adds to their disorientation, and the way of life in many old people’s home or extended family relations as in Africa settings, do little to help. All these can result in apathy, listlessness, resentment and mental stagnation, which others (younger ones) then dismiss as inevitable senility.
In man, as in all vertebrates, different levels of organisation, can be seen in the nervous system. The reflexes of the lowest level – the spinal cord and other parts of the brain are present in the foetus. Those of the forebrain and cerebral hemispheres develop after birth.
With the onset of aging, the course of development is reversed. First, the higher levels are affected – memory, thought and complex mental functions become slower and less reliable. Eventually, the individual may pass through a second childhood, with, finally, only basic reflexes remaining, such as – eating, walking, coughing. On average, by age of 70 the brain, has lost 50 to 70% of his weight in some people.
The frontal lobes of the brain – the first part to deteriorate are less concerned with intelligence and intellectuality, than with general personality. Interest in life, deliberation, and consideration.
Moreover these higher functions often bear a repressive relationship to the lower, so that as the higher deteriorate the lower are released, in what appears to be an exaggerated form. Social inhibitions are removed in old age, the same way as they become increasingly selfish, inconsiderate, obstinate, and emotional.
About 10% of people over 65 show some signs of organic brain disorder. Such mental illnesses due to old age were originally undifferentiated under the term “senility” – the loss of mental faculties with age.
Research has shown that, acute confusion is one of the commonest mental disorders in older people. It is a disturbance of the brain due to physical illness elsewhere in the body, and is also known as “acute brain syndrome”. Strange surroundings and other psychological factors may also play a part.
The symptoms are confusion, delirium, and disorientation in time and place. Perception is dulled, and the sufferer is frightened, often reacting violently to situations , that he has completely misinterpreted. Speech becomes incoherent and rambling. The outcome depends on the pre-existing mental state and the original causal illness, but complete recovery is rare.
Research has also shown that in “senile dementia” the second type of old age condition, is the disorder that links most directly with the slow process of natural nerve cell loss. It usually begins to be noticeable between the ages of 70 and 80, and primarily affects the memory. It begins gradually with recent memory, and may proceed to the point at which the patient forgets his relations and even his own name.
The forgetfulness leads to incompetence in personnel care and management. The person needs more and more attention as time goes on. Disorientation in time and place also occurs. Emotions are blunted, and there is an increasing lack of considerations for others.
Whether the course of the illness is rapid or slow, it is irreversible, and deterioration continues until death. As the numbers of old people rise, so inevitably do the cases of senile dementia.
At present it is more common in women than men.
Arteriosclerotic Dementia is also due to death of brain cells, though in this case the cells die because blockage in the arteries impairs their blood supply. The onset may be gradual, or follow suddenly upon as major stroke. In either case the effects, in an old person, are irreversible. Because the brain damage is restricted to the areas affected by the blockage, the basic personality may remain more intact than in senile dementia. The person usually retains more awareness and insight into the condition though this can result in depression and fear.
Another illness which research has unearthed is “Depressive illness”, this is also a mental illness, but organic nervous decline plays a part in its appearance. It is characterised by acute feelings of sadness, inadequacy, anxiety, apathy, guilt and fear. It may be triggered off by internal factors of mental make-up – endogenous depression, or by external events such as bereavement, or knowledge of an incurable disease – reactive depression. It often results from a combination of both.
The illness manifests itself in moods ranging from apathy to despair, and in delusions, loss of appetite and weight, and a pre-occupation with thought of suicide. It is, in fact, a major cause of suicide in the elderly. Although treatment of relapse are very great.
Always be medically guided
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